Your flowers are beautiful! I really liked the pink one with the water droplets. Question: I'm pretty new to gardening, this is my 2nd year. I read somewhere that the Morning Glory vine will choke itself out if they get wrapped around eachother. Is that true? I see your have quite a few vines overlapping one another, and they look fine.

mommomsgarden...I'm new to gardening too but I do know that morning glories need full sun, the more the better. From what I've read they seem to do fine in any soil, just don't fertilize it. If you use fertilizer or to much of it, you will get very large leaves with little to no flowers. I'm using Miracle Grow and my leaves are huge so I don't expect it to flower much at all, but now I know for next year. They also do not like to much water, to much water will also cause them not to bloom. Hope this helps!

You can grow them in part shade, if you're ok with less flower. I bought a small pot of Heavenly Blue, which was already flowering, and placed it in a southern exposure in dappled shade a month ago. I'm rewarded every morning with at least one flower. And that makes my day. Yesterday I had seven flowers. And that's more than enough for me. However, another pot I bought, which didn't have flowers has not flowered yet and it is vining all over the place.
Also two years ago, I bought a small pot of purple morning glories, and placed it in northern exposure, full / dappled shade. Since then that area, is colonized by morning glories and I get a burst of flowers by September.
I also have grown Cardinal climber with around and hour of direct sun.
I honestly believe if your plant is a good sized one, it can grow reasonably well in dappled / part shade.
If you plant seeds in part shade it will take much more time, but it can work.

I use Miracle Gro for all my morning glory transplants. I've never had an issue with the plants.

You do need to be careful with nitrogen when fertilizing them. When the vines are in flowering phase, making flower buds, they benefit from some phosphorus. This year I have not given my plants any extra fertilizer outside of what they got in the seedling growout pot. I have been giving the plants compost tea and worm castings, feeding the soil microbes, so the plants get their nutrition from the soil microbial community. The plants are doing nicely, perhaps better than I have ever seen my garden plants.

Water deprivation is used to 'force' otherwise untended plants to flower and it isn't the best way to cultivate the healthiest plants.

The best quality Morning Glories are produced utilizing an optimal growing medium, optimal nutrition, optimal sunlight and optimal water regimen...

Morning Glories which are lacking in any nutrients or water produce less than optimal looking blooms , a larger portion of 'ratty' looking leaves , in addition to producing fewer seeds and of less viability than plants provided with optimal care...

There are lot's of generalized myths about Morning Glories plastered all over the web by people who do not 'have the time' to care for their plants in an optimal manner , in addition these posters almost never demonstrate an ability to tell the difference (in relevant detail) between the many species...so, take the 'fast food style posts' which are splattered all over the web with at least a few grains of salt...

The Nitrogen in 'excessive' amounts is what can cause delayed blooming or few blooms ( but once the blooming starts the plants often benefit from increased Nitrogen) , although there are several macro nutrients , secondary nutrients and trace elements any of which might be in 'fertilizer' which is a fuzzy word because it can be a mixture of any ratio of the macro or other nutrients...

Joseph did specify that phosphorus does assist the flowering and will not delay flowering...

There are many different species and each has different optimal requirements...so , every different species doesn't 'get the same pill' so to speak...

There are different approaches to providing optimal nutrition for the plants and one of the best approaches is To Feed The Soil and allow the Soil to feed the plants...This includes using pro-biotic materials that welcome and assist the growth of beneficial fungi, bacteria and microbes which enter into a symbiotic relationship with the plants , especially the rhizosphere...

The commercial packets often have the incorrect Botanical Name (binomial) on the packets adding to generalized confusion when growing or trading seeds...

The Japanese show quality plants are fertilized (!) and provided with ample water and you won't see any of them failing to flower , with yellowed half-dead leaves or otherwise looking like anything other than a top quality show stopping plant...

This is Joseph's thread and I'm not interested to hijack it off of whatever course he intends for his thread...but mistaken over-generalizations should be offset with more accurate information gleaned from the pooling of accurate information contributed by those who (for a significant period of time) have specialized in Morning Glories.

The Japanese having been specializing in Asagao for many centuries...and they have definitely learned some things which directly 'contradict' many of the myths associated with Morning Glories by 'Westerners' who have not specialized in Morning Glories.....

Here are some links to posts where I have addressed overall conditions related to the health of Morning Glories (copy and paste url's into your browser) :

This is really beautiful. It looks like a plus version of Early Call, with those variegated leaves.
How big of plant it is?
Do you grow most of your JMG in pots like this one or directly in soil?
Your garden must be a maze of beautiful vines with various flowers, popping here and there.
Looking forward to more photos.

Thanks, true-blue! The name on that one is Heian no Beni. Its flowers are by far the largest I have in my garden this year or for that matter any year. It is incredible. The Rose Early Call you have is similar in coloration, isn't it? Heian no Beni size, it has huge leaves and flowers, and the length of vine is not any longer than other non-mutant vines.

Most of my vines are in containers, 3 to 5 gallon size. I hope you can convert that to metric. I have some plants in the "real" garden and they are growing nicely. I will put more out there next year. I hesitate to put many bamboo canes out there because the neighborhood association is quite anal about how the gardens should look.

My garden is a morning glory heaven now. See below for why I say this. BTW my Ellen Rose MG will open its first flower tomorrow I think; it has a big fat bud ready to pop. I was surprised to see that because the plant is not too long right now.

The big flower show has started in my garden. I will upload a series for you to enjoy.

Your patio must look like the sidewalks of a Japanese city during Asagao festival!
Thanks for sharing all these wonderful beauties.
We use the gallons system here. So no worry :-)
How many vines you've got per say a 3/5 gallon pot?
This is my first year, planting JMG. I'm more familiar with the traditional tricolor and purpurea varieties. No buds in sight yet, probably by early september. For the time being I'm enjoying the foliage, especially the variegated ones.

Thank you, true-blue, what a nice thing to say! I like to think I am creating a little part of Japan when I grow this garden on my deck. I will only plant 1 plant per pot. I like to collect a "clean" set of seeds and not have a mix. When it comes time to plant the next year, I like to know what I am planting.

What a great show of beautiful morning glory pictures ! Sure glad I stumbled into this forum. Lot's of good advice to offset some of the myths about MG's. Heck this is going to inspire me to experiment more.

When did you plant these morning glories? How long did it take them to produce blooms? Sun or shade needed? Have you ever tried growing a clematis in a large patio pot? What about moonflower? Do you have any Grandpa Ott MG?